Washington University in St. Louis Washington University Open Scholarship Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations Arts & Sciences Spring 5-15-2015 Japanese Women's Science Fiction: Posthuman Bodies and the Representation of Gender Kazue Harada Washington University in St. Louis Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/art_sci_etds Part of the East Asian Languages and Societies Commons Recommended Citation Harada, Kazue, "Japanese Women's Science Fiction: Posthuman Bodies and the Representation of Gender" (2015). Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 442. https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/art_sci_etds/442 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Arts & Sciences at Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. 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LOUIS Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures Dissertation Examination Committee: Rebecca Copeland, Chair Nancy Berg Ji-Eun Lee Diane Wei Lewis Marvin Marcus Laura Miller Jamie Newhard Japanese Women’s Science Fiction: Posthuman Bodies and the Representation of Gender by Kazue Harada A dissertation presented to the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences of Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2015 St. Louis, Missouri © 2015, Kazue Harada Table of Contents List of Figures ................................................................................................................................. v List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. vi Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................................... vii ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION ....................................................................................... x Introduction: Reclaiming Her Name: Women’s Science Fiction (SF) in Japan and Queer Effects in Post/Human Worlds .................................................................................................................... 1 The Containment of Women’s Writing and the Genre of Shōjo Manga .................................... 4 SF as a Male Domain: Negative Gender Stereotypes vis-à-vis Ambivalence to Gender ......... 10 Why SF Matters for Women? ................................................................................................... 15 The Counter-Hegemonic Genre ................................................................................................ 16 The Flexibility of the SF Genre ................................................................................................. 19 Women Authors Strike Back: Claiming Voices in the Male-Oriented SF ............................... 22 Undoing Human/ Undoing Gender through SF and Creating Queer Effects ............................ 28 Review of Literature on Science Fiction (SF) in Japan ............................................................ 31 Overview of Chapters ................................................................................................................ 35 Chapter One: Liminality of Queer Vampire in Hagio Moto’s Manga .......................................... 40 Beautiful Boys’ Love Narratives and SF: The Convergence of Male-Male Homosexual Romance in Shōjo Manga and SF Manga ................................................................................. 43 The Poe Clan ............................................................................................................................. 55 Vampires as Liminal Subjects in Age, Gender, and Race ........................................................ 55 The Potential to Neutral Gender: Scramble of Gendered Markers ........................................... 58 Queer Romance and Male-Male Homosocial Love .................................................................. 61 Chapter Two: Contesting Dual-Sexed (Re)production in Hagio Moto’s Manga ......................... 74 I. Queering Aliens and Post/Humans: Hidden Femininity and Dual-Sexuality ........................ 74 The Problematics of the Concepts of Hermaphroditism, Intersexuality, and (Androgyny). .... 75 Invisible Dual-Sexed Figures in “There Were Eleven!” ........................................................... 83 From Their Own Misogyny to Their Agency ........................................................................... 86 The Collapse of Sexual Dimorphism: Invisible Dual- or Multiple-Sexed Figures in Marginal89 Multiple Triangulations: An Alternative to the Electra or Oedipus Complexes and Male-Dual- Sexed-Male Relationship .......................................................................................................... 97 ii II. Dual-Sexed (Re)production—A Contested Site Between Biological and Technological Reproduction ........................................................................................................................... 102 A Historical Overview of the State and Women’s Reproductive Bodies ............................... 103 (Re)production Beyond Women in Marginal ......................................................................... 106 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 114 Chapter Three: Gender Panic through Cyborgs: Simulated Sex/Gender and Excessive Maternal Performance in Ōhara Mariko’s Texts ........................................................................................ 127 Era of Simulacra, Cyberpunk, Cyborg, and Ōhara Mariko ..................................................... 128 Ōhara Mariko and Female-Centered Science Fiction ............................................................. 129 Experiencing Cyber-Femininity and Cyber-Maternity in “The Mental Female” ................... 131 Cyberpunk and Ōhara’s “The Mental Female” ....................................................................... 132 The Outline of “The Mental Female” ..................................................................................... 135 Ōhara’s Cyberpunk Narrative ................................................................................................. 137 The Feminized Embodiment of Cybernetics and City ............................................................ 140 Cyber-Femininity: Simulacra of the Feminine ........................................................................ 142 The Cyber-Mother Has Gone “Mental” .................................................................................. 146 Gender Simulation though the Cyborg Subjectivities in Hybrid Child .................................. 152 Definitions of Cyborg ............................................................................................................. 153 The Outline of Hybrid Child ................................................................................................... 155 Ōhara’s Cyborgs: Gender Panic through Cyborg ................................................................... 156 (Re)construction of Masculinity: The Reversion of Male Development .................................... 160 Symbiotic Cycles and the Parodic Performance of Mother-Daughter .................................... 163 Feminization of the Planet— The Monstrous Mother and The Neutralization of Sex/ Gender ................................................................................................................................................. 174 Conclusion: Hybrid Child ....................................................................................................... 177 Queering Cyborg and Performativity of Gender—“Girl” ....................................................... 178 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 185 Chapter Four: Gender Politics in The Posthuman and Post-Fluid Worlds of Ueda Sayuri’s The Cage of Zeus ............................................................................................................................... 190 Recognition of Gender Identity Disorder (GID) and the Controversies on Transgenderism in the Early 2000s in Japan .......................................................................................................... 193 Synopsis of The Cage of Zeus ................................................................................................. 197 iii The Systematic Use of Gendered Speech ............................................................................... 197 In The Cage— Marginality: New Hermaphroditic Sex/Gender Identity ................................ 198 Orientation and Disorientation through Dual-Sexed Bodies ................................................... 201 Contested Feminist Views: The Idealist(ic) Scientist vs. The Skeptical Terrorist .................. 208 The Counter Gender Political Discourse: Dual-Sexed Normativity ....................................... 215 The Complexity of the Rounds: A Minority Within A Minority ............................................ 216 Chapter Five: Queer Families in Posthuman Worlds: Entanglement and Companionship in Ueda Sayuri’s The Ocean